Suffocation
by roseywine
Summary: Set shortly after her marriage to Dr Turner, Shelagh must allow herself to let go of the past. One-shot.


**A/N: My first venture into Call The Midwife and I'm just a little nervous. Reviews would be lovely. And despite wishful thinking, I don't own these wonderful characters.**

Tonight was one of those nights when the fog swirled around the Poplar streets, pressing down with a heavy-handedness that sometimes stole her breath. Shelagh shivered, but she still didn't close the bedroom window.

"It's cold," murmured Patrick, shuffling further down into the blanket. She watched as the material tightened over his body, pulling across the muscles of his chest and biceps. Trembling, she reached out to touch him, but recoiled at the sensation of the taut cotton against her fingertips.

"Darling?" he whispered, half-opening one eye. "Are you alright?"

She was sitting up on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest and the blanket thrown to his side. He noticed that she was wearing her loosest nightdress and nothing at all on her feet.

"I'm fine," she replied, her tone reassuring, but he caught something in her eye. It was fleeting, but unmistakable, begging him not to turn over and go back to sleep. He sat up, untangling himself from the blanket and pushing his hair out of his face.

"I'm sorry, Patrick," she said with a half-smile. "I'm being silly." "Don't be sorry," he said, reaching out to pull her into his arms, but she tensed under his touch. He noticed her she was freezing cold.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yes," she said. "But I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

He tried to read something in her expression, but her eyes kept flitting away. He couldn't quite capture her gaze. He couldn't quite hold her down.

"I thought the hardest part in all this would be making the decision to leave Nonnatus," she said after a few moments. "I thought that when the decision was made things would get easier, but I'm not sure they have. There's still something… I'm just not free yet."

"Is it me?" he asked, curling his fist around the corner of the blanket, holding on to the cold, white cotton. "Is this all too much for you? The house? Marriage? Timothy?"

"So many questions I don't have the answer to, Patrick," she said. "All I know for certain is that I love you more than anything I've ever loved before. I'm not sure where the rest of it fits in, but I'm sure of our love."

He nodded, staring at the crumpled material in his fist. He tried to smooth it out over his knee, but the creases stood out like scratches on skin.

"I don't want you to feel like this has anything to do with you," she said, folding her arms across her chest, tucking her feet under her nightdress. "It's all in my head. I just need a little time."

"I wish I could make it better for you," he said. "I knew it would be difficult, but I didn't know I would be so helpless." "You're far from that."

He was half-inclined to believe her, but as they sat together on the bed, side by side and miles apart, they didn't know how to look at one another again. With nowhere to put his hands, nowhere to put his love for fear of suffocating her, Patrick swung himself out of bed. In the half-dark, he could see her face in profile – or at least the part of it that wasn't obscured by her mousey hair – and he was taken by how startlingly fragile she looked without her glasses.

"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice small and broken.

"I don't know."

"Have I pushed you away?"

He walked round to her side of the bed filled with tender frustration that made his heart ache. Kneeling on the floor in front of her, he put his head in his hands.

"I can't set you free, Shelagh," he said, his fingers burning to touch the skin of her wrist as it lay on the bed in front of him. He remembered their wedding night and how he had teased that same patch of skin with his lips and watched the smile come to life on her face. Slow and soft. That's all he'd ever been.

"It has to be me, doesn't it?" she said, turning towards him. "For the first time in my life, it has to be me."

"It can come from no one else."

"I have to accept my decision and let go of the past. There is no halfway in this. No safety net."

With her acceptance, she let her head fall back against the headboard, sighing so that he saw the rise and fall of her chest.

"I'm so tired," she said, letting her eyes flicker shut. "And so cold."

He was about to get to his feet, about to make a move to close the window, when he felt ice against his skin as she pushed her fingers into his. Staring for a moment at her hand curled in his own, he didn't dare move. Instead, he stayed still, feeling his own warmth seep into her.

"What do you want me to do, Shelagh?" he asked.

"Nothing," she muttered, her voice full of heavy half-sleep. "I want you to do nothing but stay with me."

"You'll tell me if it's too much?"

She nodded, turning to the side and sliding under the blanket, pulling it up to her chin. As softly as he could, he slid the window closed, watching her as he turned the lock. She looked as peaceful and innocent, curled up tightly and finally warm.

He smiled to himself as he stood over her, reaching to climb into his side of the bed. Before he could move his weight, he felt her hands on either side of his ribcage, holding him above her in the dark.

"I couldn't do any of this without you," she whispered. "I will be forever grateful when I get through this."

He felt her breath first, warm against him as she searched for his lips. She was no less timid in the dark, but he drank in the scent of her skin and the softness of her mouth.

In what seemed like no time at all, the sun was streaming through the window, the fog and all its memories burnt away with the new morning. He wasn't sure if he'd slept or not, but it was the most peaceful night he'd spent in a long time, listening to her steady breathing, sometimes tracing her smile with his fingertips.


End file.
